Swedish – Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project

16-6: Tosca Cake

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods March 30, 2025March 30, 2025all-purpose flour, almond extract, almonds, baked goods, boiled, breakfast, brunch, butter, cake pan, cakes, chopped, creamed, dessert, Easter, eggs, fairly easy, fairly inexpensive, flavorings, glazed, granulated sugar, melted, milk, Mother's Day, nuts, party food, pecans, peeled, Scandinavian, sliced, spring, stand mixer, Swedish, toffee, untested, vanilla extract, vegetarian, walnuts

Happy Sunday! Spring has sprung here, so I present to you a lovely, light cake option, 16-6: Tosca Cake. They even used tulips in the picture!

Tosca cake (or toscakaka) is a well-known thing, essentially a Swedish almond cake. There’s a million other recipes out there for it, but we’re here to talk about this one, so let’s do that.

Lots of brunch occasions in the springtime…this could be a great dish to bring with you or to serve at your own table if you have any upcoming plans. You can even play with flavor extracts if you want to give it that extra something.

9-4: Swedish Meatballs

Jamie Martin Group 09: Ground Meat & Sausage, Section 2: Main Courses January 18, 2016July 5, 2020Alton Brown, appetizers, beef, black pepper, bread crumbs, butter, deglazed, dinner, fairly easy, fairly inexpensive, grated, gravy, ground beef, ground meat, lunch, meatballs, pan-fried, party food, reduced, salt, Swedish, untested, veal, white bread, white pepper, yellow onions

There seem to be a lot of differing interpretations of Swedish meatballs out there. Serious Eats runs into the same dilemma and ups the meatball’s game with umami and acidic flavors; Alton Brown stays simple and sticks to earthier allspice and nutmeg. Both soak the white bread in milk (panade) before adding it to the meat mix, whereas 9-4: Swedish Meatballs swaps the milk for water and keeps the spices restrained simply to salt and pepper. This doesn’t bode well.

Simply Delicious, you can’t call it an “original recipe” when the only original thing about it is how bland and unseasoned it is. I made these as a requested dish for someone else, and was provided only ground beef (their preference) as opposed to a mix of meats with which to make them. As a result, they were even LESS exciting–it’s a good thing the requestor digs bland food.